| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Octopus by Frank Norris: Besides this, the ditch was a natural boundary between two
divisions of the Los Muertos ranch, the first and fourth.
Presley now had the choice of two routes. His objective point
was the spring at the headwaters of Broderson Creek, in the hills
on the eastern side of the Quien Sabe ranch. The trail afforded
him a short cut thitherward. As he passed the house, Mrs. Hooven
came to the door, her little daughter Hilda, dressed in a boy's
overalls and clumsy boots, at her skirts. Minna, her oldest
daughter, a very pretty girl, whose love affairs were continually
the talk of all Los Muertos, was visible through a window of the
house, busy at the week's washing. Mrs. Hooven was a faded,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: Nor youth all quit; but, spite of Heaven's fell rage
Some beauty peeped through lattice of sear'd age.
Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,
Which on it had conceited characters,
Laund'ring the silken figures in the brine
That season'd woe had pelleted in tears,
And often reading what contents it bears;
As often shrieking undistinguish'd woe,
In clamours of all size, both high and low.
Sometimes her levell'd eyes their carriage ride;
As they did battery to the spheres intend;
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: desert,
Far off,--indistinct,--as of wave or wind in the forest,
Mixed with the whoop of the crane and the roar of the grim
alligator.
Thus ere another noon they emerged from the shades; and before
them
Lay, in the golden sun, the lakes of the Atchafalaya.
Water-lilies in myriads rocked on the slight undulations
Made by the passing oars, and, resplendent in beauty, the lotus
Lifted her golden crown above the heads of the boatmen.
Faint was the air with the odorous breath of magnolia blossoms,
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: stupid expressions - one is that the work of art is grossly
unintelligible; the other, that the work of art is grossly immoral.
What they mean by these words seems to me to be this. When they
say a work is grossly unintelligible, they mean that the artist has
said or made a beautiful thing that is new; when they describe a
work as grossly immoral, they mean that the artist has said or made
a beautiful thing that is true. The former expression has
reference to style; the latter to subject-matter. But they
probably use the words very vaguely, as an ordinary mob will use
ready-made paving-stones. There is not a single real poet or
prose-writer of this century, for instance, on whom the British
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